how it feels...

i can feel it coming now that i am older. slow and pulsating. creeping and suffocating. i can brace myself for the impact. place my hand over my heart and count the beats like a fated metronome. when i was smaller, it would hit me unannounced, hurling me into blackness. the buzzing in my ears would drown out all sound. i would bury my face into my palms, wet with tears. my hot breath moving across the valleys of my hands, the only thing letting me know i was still alive.

now my skin starts to hurt, and i always fear that this is the moment when i have finally become untouchable. i feel the blackness seeping into my lungs, making it hard to breathe. i feel the tar forming underneath my feet, making it hard to move. i feel my heartbeat in my head, trumpeting the static that crackles and screams, making it hard to think or speak. the ghosts get restless and the sheets scrape at my skin. i long for hands that are not my own. words that will soothe the wounds. i try to erase myself and redraw the lines, but my hand shakes and the lines are charged and raw.

when i was smaller, i would climb the trellis on the back porch to the roof where i would lie staring at the sky for hours, waiting for the blackness to leave...inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, hoping that the wind would fill my lungs with air that didn't taste like acid. inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. i would trace words into the roof tiles until my skin bled like some ancient ritual to appease the gods. inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, amen.

i can feel it coming now that i am older. i brace myself for the impact.

the photo

there is a photo of you and i. i am small. my knees curled to my stomach. my face, covered, resting on my hands. mom said that is how i must have slept in the womb, already protecting myself from violence unseen. you are asleep, stretched out, taking up space. i curl up trying to disappear.

you are asleep and i am wide awake, a thin grimace on my face. there is a small distance between us, and i will not cross it, because i don't want to be touched by you. everything in that picture is lifeless. except the sheets--they are only thing filled with color. i still have them. they still smell like that house.

i drove by it once, slowing at the driveway, staring at the oak tree in the front yard, the sloping branches where i would hide, curled up in the womb of the tree waiting for it to pass. there are only a few pictures of us, only one where i am smiling. you rarely smiled. you collected things that were beautiful and tried to keep them still and untouched. sometimes, i think, i am still waiting for it to pass.

Ritual

the prayer flags burn to ashes

curling to the floor at my bound feet

i have rubbed the buddha raw

to rid the smell of you from my hair

i have prayed for peace

stared at my plastic hands stitched together

gripped my alien legs and begged for release

i have turned the wheel

cracked the mirror in the lion's mouth

eaten the paper caked with honey

but i still taste your skin

exhale, amen, leave me

i can't welcome no one in

dissipate now you holy ghost

you whisper memories like restless chants

sink into my kingly walls

like the incense smoke above the mantle

let something else hold you at bay

a eucharist of teeth and nails and bones

allow me to pray

you away.

New Horizons

larry has a stab wound

healing on his stomach

he lifts up his shirt

to show me the gauze

stained red-brown

he tells me it looks worse

than it feels

jerryl has a friend

who was gunned down

last saturday night

on his front porch

dead on arrival

he has been carrying

a gun in his bookbag

since sunday

toya has a cigarette

hanging out of her

mouth every morning

before the door is unlocked

she is fifteen

and her belly grows

bigger every day

while the rest of her

wastes away

trey has a mother

who smokes crack

until she passes out

on the kitchen floor

he can't read

all he ever thinks about

is picking his mother

off of the kitchen floor

and taking the blackened pipe

from her knotted hand.

i am diagramming sentences

on the black board

ted smokes rock

subject verb object

bob bought a gun

subject verb object

sally sells drugs

subject verb object

i don't want to die

verb

Summer

the heat seeps

out of the pavement

in long whisps

stealing the air

from my lungs

the city suffocates

and i shuffle

to the mailbox

kicking magnolia leaves

peering inside

for love letters

that never come

the tomatoes

at the farmer’s market

smell sour and earthy

but i’m still

rifling through

dirty clothes

trying to capture

what’s left of your

skin on my shirts

i sit on benches

drinking beer

sweat dripping

down the backs

of my thighs

desperate to remember

anything at all

the sun sets angry red

over the downtown skyline

the buildings are

ugly and fragmented

and i miss

the curve of your back

the construction site

where no one ever works

gapes like hades

in the humid night

i kick cones

and throw rocks

no one sees

me anymore

i can wonder

all night along

the railroad tracks

but it won’t make

the phone ring.

Elaine

your hands would shake

while you talked

as if they didn’t belong

to your body

moving on a will

of their own

you couldn’t get out of

bed for days

wrestling in the dark

avoiding the july sun

but the plants in the

living room were still

green and full

mocking you

in their stillness

the medicines never worked

just leaving you

anxious and bloated

leaving you turning

the pages of the bible

for relief that never came

i would stare

at my own raw hands

at the tearstains

on my shoes

my bloodshot eyes

and unwashed hair

wondering what

help i could possibly

give to you

that i didn’t require

myself

i tossed and turned

in the sheets

i sank and sweltered

in the covers

i breathed too fast

and moved too slow

my fingernails

disappeared again and

i wondered

how long before

my hands started

shaking like that.

True Story 4

i was a child and you were a child.  we used to hold hands in the hallway because it was what everyone did.  i thought i was a woman trapped in a girl's body so i would smoke cigarettes after school and kiss you in the woods on the weekends.  you were just my type--breaking all the rules and pretending to be someone who you were not.  my mother didn't approve and so i just held your hand tighter. i knew there was something else behind the baggy pants, drugs, and bravado--like the things you would whisper over the phone late at night. you told me about it once--finding your brother that day--gun on the floor and blood on the walls.  the house had been too silent, like death, and climbing the stairs was like wading through quicksand. there he was.  but it wasn't him at all, just a rag doll limp on the floor.  and then there was the waiting.  waiting for the proper people to come to take statements, to snap photos, to make it disappear.  and then there was the waiting.  waiting for the world to feel right again, to stop hurting, to stop crying, to make it disappear.  so i just held your hand tighter.

Wishing Wells

small hands break like ice

splintering

under the weight of

tree stump hands

little girl does pirouettes

in the sand

feet disappearing 

more and more

with each turn

she won't crack a smile

for she might fall apart

spinning

spinning

spinning

like a fatalistic top

people tell her time heals

all wounds

but they never tell her

when to stop.--EAC

True Story 3

this is my first funeral.  i am nine and can't keep my shoes tied.  i can see the coffin from where we sit and it looks alien and sad.  someone speaks about your art and the words you bled onto paper.  someone else talks about your friend that burned out with you. i have seen the poems and the drawings--you knew you were going to die.  but, if we keep saying amen then we don't have to cry.  i stare at my feet wondering how we all continue to stand, to walk, to breathe.  it was so sudden and now here we are layered in black singing the songs you like, but cannot hear. i remember when your foot got run over by the car in the driveway.  who would have known that you were not invincible?

this is my second funeral.  i am 14 and waiting for someone to catch my breath.  there are pictures of you lined along the altar of the church, your heart-shaped face a dagger in my side.  a year ago we were in the backseat of the school bus eating pixie stixs.  a year ago we were giggling over hostile crushes and stolen kisses underneath the gym bleachers. now you are just pictures left undeveloped on my disposable camera or the cds i let you borrow but you never returned.  your blood is still on the street. we are all here instead of cleaning it up.  i won't dance the same anymore now that you are gone.  i won't laugh the same knowing that it will only continue to be stolen.  i refused to wear black eventhough i feel like i am blind stumbling through darkness.  i remember when you told me how excited you were about that dance.  why did you ever leave?

this is my third funeral.  i am 15 and figuring it out.  this time, i don't go.  when i was small you used to hold me in your lap and read stories. i have pictures to prove it.  i used to notice how our skin was the same color in the summer, like the color of coffee with a little cream.  i used to forget how you yelled.  i used to forget you could be mean.  after we left, i used to think that you did not have a heart, but in the end, your absent heart killed you.  i didn't cry when the phone call came.  i didn't want to seem a traitor.  i won't know where they buried you so i can't come leave flowers or all my inadequacies at your feet.  don't worry i'll learn to forgive along the way, but for now it is easier to be angry.  i remember when you sold all my things.  i wished that you would die.

True Story 2

driving through chimalhuacan with the windows down, my hand tracing the planes of wind as we moved along.  we had been drinking micheladas all night.  my mouth was on fire, my body  numb.  your sisters were in the back seat arguing in spanish about the cabron at the entrance to the club.  you were angry, your face stone-like and immovable.  you had wanted to beat the shit out of him, but we had pulled you into the car. your pride was hurt and somehow it was my fault. i just continued to sit silently in the passenger seat, waiting for it to pass over.  you didn't let it.  more yelling in rapid sequence.  i made a comment and your anger spilled forth into a hand gesture that connected with my face. i sat stunned for a minute.  it must have been an accident, but my mind didn't interpret it that way. i completely shut down leaving rationality far behind, screaming at the top of my lungs to stop the car. you pulled the car over into a dirt side street apologizing repeatedly.  your sisters were whispering spanish in my ear. all i heard was rage buzzing in my ears. tears streaming down my face i pushed the door open and stepped into the street.  i hesitated for a minute, then took off running into the darkness.  i could hear you yelling from the car and i didn't care.  i pumped my legs faster. my rage and frustration only carrying me further from the situation.  i ran until i couldn't breathe, my breath coming out in ragged gasps and muted sobs. it was then that i realized that i had no idea where i was. the street lights were broken and police sirens echoed in the distance.  my purse was in the car. there were only 50 pesos in my pocket.  all of the sudden this place was no longer beautiful, but dark and scary.  i was alone.  i sat on a street corner for what seemed like hours too stubborn to walk back to where i thought the car may have been. i sat and questioned everything.

True Story 1

do you remember the night you called me, after having a gun shoved in your face

on the blacktop? face down, head turned to the side, crushing the pavement, holding your breath, eyes shut tight, this was it.  and it was not like some movie where life flashes by in clips of black and white and color.  it was just people--that you know, that you have known, that you wanted to know again.  i had been lost in your memory for some time. the me, when i was still light inside.  the me, when smiling didn't seem to hurt so much.  you said, you wanted to hear my voice.  i said,  i wanted to not feel gutted when you said my name like it meant something to you.  life is too short and time is a bullshit excuse for turning away, but i can't stop running.  i picture you on your bed, but the only image i have of you is from three years ago.  i try to picture you as a man, maybe taller, maybe harder.  we speak through the phone like strangers.  how is this so when i used to read your body like a map with my fingertips?  i imagine the gun going off, your blood spread thick on the concrete and i know that i would have died too--in black and white and in color. hope is always your smile in that photograph of us on the beach when we were too young to realize that the world was burning up.  i told you i would come home if you asked me to, and then the silence, like the questions we never answer, like the gaps we never fill.  i was never enough to keep you still.  rather, you were in and out of the state, the country, your mind...  and now you call to hear my voice but it isn't really enough to break your heart or move your feet.  so i breathe slowly and say i'm sorry.  my voice is stretched tight like the phone cord beneath the door. i draw my knees into my chest, my back against the bricks in the hallway, and i can smell your house like i was sixteen with the world hanging upside down and butterflies in my stomach.  the only fluttering i can hear now is my heart--fight or flight.  you didn't fight tonight, which kept you alive.  i fought everyday after you left to keep you in the palm of my hand, etched into my life line......which kept me broken.  i have the scars to remind me.  i start to cry because i am not this person and you almost died and the ocean is so far away and the bed is lonely and your voice is heavy.  you said you'd call and i knew you wouldn't.  we said i love you like it was different, as if our lives could still talk to one another like they used to...

I'm missing home...

Things are very far away from me right now, as if I am watching silently in the background as events unfold, people speak, hands touch.  I have somehow made everything complicated and ugly and am not sure where to begin the arduous task of cleaning it up.  I seem to recall smiling a lot more in my past lives, the left side of my cheek pulling up a little higher than the right.  Now it seems unwarranted and fake, but I do it anyway because it makes everyone more comfortable.  I'll grin like a Cheshire cat if it means that you won't ask me questions.  I don't have the answers anyway.  Sometimes late at night, I'll sit on my steps smoking a cigarette and looking at the sky, wondering if I am really connected to any one or any thing at all.  Sometimes I tread barefoot into the street hoping that someone I once knew will drive past.  Sometimes I lie awake in bed trying to drag memories from the recesses of my mind, only to find they are blurry and dubbed over.  I'm not even really sure what really happened at this point.  All I know is that I am missing home.

I have...

i have seen you

some mythic figure

etched in stone walls

your arms spread out wide

your profile sharp edged and serious

i have heard you

a siren in my dreams

calling me out of stillness

i come stumbling

grappling with your voice

syrup laden and low

i have felt you

like the hand of god

against my back

flesh and teeth and muscle

my mouth in a tight grimace

i turn and run away.

Ah Memories...

Today, I stretched out on my carpet in the living room and played old mix CDs from "back in the day." I was looking for one song in particular that I had been thinking about for weeks but couldn't remember what CD I had burned it onto...after about three hours of flipping through songs, I heard the first opening chords and closed my eyes and smile....


I was wasted in the afternoon
Waiting on a train
I woke up in pieces
and Elisabeth had disappeared again
I wish you were inside of me
I hope that you're ok
I hope you're resting quietly
I just wanted to say
Good, Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth, Goodnight
We couldn't all be cowboys
So some of us are clowns
Some of us are dancers on the midway
We roam from town to town
I hope that everybody can find a little flame
Me, I say my prayers,
then I just light myself on fire
And I walk out on the wire once again
And I say
Good, Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth, Goodnight
I will wait for you in Baton Rouge
I'll miss you down in New Orleans
I'll wait for you while she slips in something comfortable
And I'll miss you when I'm slipping in between
If you wrap yourself in daffodils
I will wrap myself in pain
And if you're the queen of california
Baby I am the king of the rain
And I say
Good,Goodnight Elisabeth
Goodnight Elisabeth, Goodnight--Counting Crows

fell asleep with the pen
clenched between my fingers
again last night
the rapid flutter of drug heavy honey eyelashes
and I lost the ability to evacuate
these swarm of bee thoughts
clamoring at my honeyhive
unconsciousness drowned the persistent droning
still I slept with my hand spread
across the page
grasping its smooth finish
like a mason jar half full
my callus broken hands
covering viscous words
still thinking they could
drag me back to inspiration
unyielding
before the beekeeper returned to check
the safety of his buzzing teeming minions.--EAC

Writing from Another Time

a work in progress

-for an old friend-

i know now.
august of last year would be the last time
i would ever see you.
i crave that night street cool breeze lane
where my captivity first began
to begin that night again
just to slow the second hand
as it made shadows multiply
on familiar concrete under possessive summer skies
the sun had started to fall, the air no longer thick and heavy
but moving swiftly over my skin
we were on the creaking wooden porch
me in a swing
you in a chair
blocking my vision occupying my thoughts
while talking to your sister, mouthing inconsequentially,
i intently stared at your face
a face I could remember from
pages of twisted words and compressed thoughts
all this in order to figure out when you started to look so old,
when i started to fell so distant
staring across empty space i found lines, rugged and sharp
that my fingers had never known,
stubble creeping along your chin
that had never brushed against my cheek
i wanted to reach out trace the outline
so i could remember what you felt like in air
what you looked like through the lens of my hand
sitting in that chair so unaware
the old wood creaking, keeping time
i glanced at you once finally
face to face only to find myself bombarded
by my bondage to you
at that moment my eyes decided
it was too monumental to ever do that again
profiles are safer when the stars are out
safer than the dark pools i had to face,
the dark pools that keep me chained to that swing
oscillating perpetual limbo with you in the same scene
only we pretend to be adults now—older than our memories
when time ceased to matter, the house lights extinguished,
we drifted into the street, a ritual we had learned
when we were still new
when the sky always threatened to keep me from you
your friend who had always lived up the street
joined us as we sat staring at the stars
talking about the past, about the lives we longed to relive
this was not the space where one spoke of the future
or the present that was running us down, hunting us
the street was a time machine keeping us frozen
in old fears and comforting insecurities
you eased down beside me with familiar weight
i felt my body relax under your presence
i couldn’t look at you or the moment might steal away
into the cover of the trees never to be recovered
never to be felt as it freed my skin
up the street friend raged on about money and capitalism
fuck the system mantras we had come to dwell on
over years of jaded living
nothing matters dropping on the wind
why am i here’s scraping on the cement
i just considered the holes in the sky
thinking of a night a few years past
when we still had intentions.
i had stood under those same stars
and watched you disappear a thousand times over
the stars had not changed and neither had i
i was older in my skin less happy
less aware of where my feet were
where my mind had traveled
but i was still frozen with you there beside me
still the same person who held your face in my hands
so i wouldn’t forget who you were
so i could always find your face tattooed on my hands
while my mind moved miles above us
you placed your hand over mine
i couldn’t even look at you
for fear that I might break and seep into you
i just smiled and linked my fingers with yours
it didn’t matter that we no longer were
it didn’t matter that we may not ever be
in the early hours of the night i just wanted
to remember what safety felt like and
how the stars looked hanging in the sky--EAC 2004

That Street

Alot of things happened on that street. I drove by it the other day, because I was missing you. The first time we kissed was on that street. I was drunk and had my whole life in front of me. You--were right in front of me.

"I think I'm lonely."
"You don't have to be."
"Sometimes I think I do. No one understands me. No one wants to try hard enough."
"I could try."
"I'm fucked up."
"So am I."
"I have issues."
"So do I."


We had our first fight on that street. I was so insecure and you took it so personal. I remember stumbling on the street in my underwear, tears streaming down my face, looking for your car. You had already left and I felt like I was dying inside. What if you never came back? What if I had fucked up everything? I tend to do that. I tend to self destruct. I drove around all night looking for you. I found you at four in the morning asleep on someone's floor.

"Hey."
"Hey."
"Fuck...I'm sorry. Please come back."
"Are you sure you want that?"
"I'm sure I want you."
"I can't believe you found me."
"I think the same thing all the time."